Optimist World Championship - Team Racing final day + Video

by Michalis Pateniotis on 23 Jul 2012 The Optimist World Championship 2012 final day of Team Racing was held in Santo Domingo today and the hit was on! The top 16 teams of the world, having qualified from yesterday’s races, would give it all in order to claim the prestigious Trophy.

Among the favorites, we find Singapore, Peru, Netherlands and USA. In New Zealand, the 2011 Opti Worlds, the Singaporeans dominated over the Peruvians with two wins and one loss at the grand final.

However, here it is a different story. Swallow waters and shifty weather make the things more complicated. The racecourse is a unique one.

Singapore started the day with one victory over the Germans. Same did the Kiwis and the Thais. At the same time, the Dutch and the Swedish, as well as the Americans, won their rivals and qualified for the next round.

The Americans kept on winning all their rivals one by one and qualified for the Grand Finals early enough. However, this was not the case for the second team that would go to the finals. Singapore was among the favorites; however, they had to win over Chile and Netherlands. Both teams were really well trained and the Singaporeans did not have an easy day at all. However, at the very end, they managed to beat them both and were now in the finals.

The nation to win two races would be the 2012 world champion. The Americans had already won the Singaporeans in the qualification races. However, their rivals had now learned their lesson and this would prove to be a valuable one.

In both races, the Singaporeans were the absolute leaders and gave no chance to the Americans. They finished in top three places in both races and were the 2012 World Champions.

Congratulations to the young guns and for sure to their coach. It is not a coincidence that they have been winning so many medals lately! Hard work and professionalism count a lot in Opti Sailing.

Optimist World Championship website